


The Third Mother

by junonreactor



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Misgendering, Parent-Child Relationship, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 05:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junonreactor/pseuds/junonreactor
Summary: Hojo makes a life change. It doesn't really change that much.





	The Third Mother

**Author's Note:**

> This is just to entertain myself and get rid of the trans!Hojo idea that wouldn't go away. It's not an accurate or particularly favorable depiction of being trans, because Hojo is a mad scientist and a totally dysfunctional person. Background Lazard/Sephiroth is purely self-indulgent rarepair.

She'd thought of herself as _herself_ privately for many years. It was nobody's else's business. It didn't matter what others thought or how she looked, since she was disliked and ugly anyway. She'd already long since accomplished what was certainly the greatest achievement of her life, and was now managing a career at its apex. Making alterations to her way of life was unnecessary. Unwise. Frivolous. Quite possibly very disappointing.

It obsessed her anyway. 

Once a truly interesting idea took root in Hojo's mind -- a real runner of an idea, the kind that colonized headspace, lit fires, and impeded sleep -- usually it was a thrilling experience, like being high. _This_ idea was more of a creeper, tangling the Professor's thoughts, clogging time and dredging up superfluous reveries, slowly taking over everything with the persistent, vigorous suffocation of a genetically modified vine. It fundamentally lacked the exalted detachment that Hojo craved. Her work, the only thing that really mattered, was beginning to suffer stagnation. Avoidance had clearly become futile. The only way to get rid of the hypothesis was to subject it to proof. 

Synthesizing and administering the drugs was easy. After that, Hojo just had to maintain the simple regimen and monitor its effects. Action finally undertaken and data beginning to flow in, the Professor's brain felt a little bit better already. 

//// 

The drugs did their intended work slowly, but the irritating side effects were immediate. She _felt_ things. Her temper shortened even further, sending techs and interns scattering like ninepins. At night there was loneliness, pungent enough to be actually identifiable in the usual sludge of insomniac negativity. She thought about the past more, leaving her stinging from old slights and exhausted from the unwanted upwelling memories of people who were long gone. 

It made Hojo miss _her_. Maudlin recollections and midnight daydreams were, to Hojo, nothing but signs of senility, something to stanch like the flow of blood. Not thinking about it had been survival at first, then choice, then long-ossified habit. How dare her own brain harass her like this? Cigarettes were contraindicated with her regimen, so she paced around drinking instead. 

It was all so unpleasant that she briefly considered aborting the whole experiment. But when she saw Sephiroth again, the first time he'd bothered to show up for his routine examination in weeks, the surge of pride she felt was so ferocious, so profoundly compensatory, it almost made her lose her composure. 

Every parent in history had believed, with severe bias and without proof, that their child was the best. Her child actually, quantitatively, _was_. He was perfect in every way, and _she_ had made him. 

"Professor? Are you alright?" 

"Fine, dear boy. Just fine." She found herself having to wipe her eyes and take a moment to get herself back together. The glow of pride in her remained, banked and warm. 

Sephiroth sniffed, automatically suspicious of any combination of novelty and Hojo. "Something's different. You're not dying, are you?" 

"Hah! Don't get so excited, you won't be rid of me anytime soon. Now, arm out..." 

Hojo spent the whole exam blathering on to himself, which was normal, but he did it in a ebullient, nostalgic mood, which was not. Sephiroth stoically endured the procedures and the very inaccurately related stories about what a precious child he'd been (he had been there too, after all, and the incidents in question had contained a lot more bodily fluids, biting, stress, and yelling than Hojo apparently chose to remember) while keeping a skeptical eye fixed closely on the scientist. 

//// 

Lazard knew well enough to wait until Sephiroth had washed the laboratory stench off himself, eaten something, and relaxed on the couch before bothering him with a cup of tea. "How'd it go?" 

"Fine. No mako infusions today. Had to do a neurological VR screening." 

"Because of your migraines? Is everything okay?" 

"Mm. Everything's the same. Except..." He furrowed his brow. "Hojo's acting weird." 

Lazard winced behind his teacup. "Bad?" 

"No, just weird." He downed his own tea, still piping hot, in one gulp. "He smells like he's taking female hormones." 

"...Huh. Well, that _is_ kinda weird." 

Sephiroth shrugged, idly braiding up his quickly drying hair. 

//// 

After the period of adjustment -- her levels had been more than a bit too high -- the strong feelings became more moderate, normalized. Easier to supress. She'd been concerned at first that even a slightly heightened sense of emotion might affect the objectivity of her work, but that hadn't occured. In fact, now that she'd come through the other side, her creativity and problem-solving seemed to have been enhanced. Mentally, things were clearer than ever, though it took some reflection to figure out what was different. 

The grinding in her head, a stuck gear of frustration and discontent, something that had dogged her daily since prep school, was gone. 

Physically, things had progressed in an interesting way. Her chest hurt, shockingly painful, bad enough that she decided to lock herself in her office and break into some of the more exciting topical analgesics, just to take the edge off. That seemed to work on the pain, and she came up with several fascinating new lines of research to pursue while she was at it... if her sober self could only figure out the high version of her own handwriting. 

The accumulation of subcutaneous fat, and particularly deposition into the adipose storage of her gluteal region, meant she had to buy new clothes. Women's sizes were too vexing, all of it indecipherable rubbish, with trousers affected particularly badly, so she just bought slightly different fittings of the same things she already had. 

The Web was truly a marvelous invention, and the fangirls were such a helpful bunch. It was really too bad that her plan to use the Silver Elite as a prospective matchmaking pool for her stubbornly homosexual offspring hadn't come to anything. They were good girls, but none of them were _that_ good. The reclusive Chairwoman H swapped a few samples of data from some of Sephiroth's many, many battle sims for advice on buying a bra -- yet another thing that could be done online. 

Her face looked different now, softer, less gaunt. She hardly had to shave anyway, and now even more infrequently. She looked like she imagined her mother might have, if she'd survived to this age. Curious. 

She had only half-allowed herself to hope for this, so seeing the first evidence of it made her cackle with delight, practically preening in the mirror. They were admittedly modest gains, and unlikely to lead to complete victory, but the very edges of her hairline were filling back in. 

//// 

Hojo's underlings in the lab, initially terrified by her rocky adjustment to whole new levels of bad moods, were warily drawing back in. They weren't all idiots, and they'd pooled together to begin addressing her properly amongst themselves. The bolder ones even extended a few new social tendrils, which she of course shut down with disdain. 

The chatter in the lab when they thought she wasn't listening (didn't they realize that she was loud because she didn't care, not because she was deaf?) was amusing. 

"...You know, I always was comfortable working here, as a woman. The sexism at university was dreadful. When they said this place was creepy, I assumed it would be more of the same. I was _so_ pleasantly surprised to find it was just the bioethics situation they were talking about." 

"...Her hiring choices have always been at or above parity." 

"...Remember the chemist who groped Dr. Lior? Were you here for that? Hojo destroyed his career. No one's seen him at any conferences since. It was awesome. I always wondered why he'd, er, she'd do that, when she's personally so indifferent." 

"...I never told anyone this before, because I didn't want it to affect my job, but I'm trans, too." 

"...I'm actually _more_ afraid of her now." 

//// 

Like the metaphorical boiling frog (frogs don't work that way, she knows. She had tried), it took a long time for anyone besides Sephiroth and her relatively astute scientists to notice anything other than Hojo being slightly less furious and slightly more productive. It had been more than half a year, and board meetings were becoming uncomfortable. Not for Hojo, of course; she was always happy to watch that crew of cretins, boors, and bores suffer in their overstuffed seats. 

It was Rufus who cracked. "Hojo, since when have you had tits?" 

Heidegger bashed his fist on the table hard enough to rattle everyone's coffee cups, startle Palmer awake, and send Dark Nation, who had been resting at Rufus's feet, growling and hissing into a corner. "Thank fuck someone's finally said something. It's been driving me crazy." 

President Shinra nodded. "Care to illuminate us on your, er, situation there, Professor?" 

Hojo scowled. "As it's utterly irrelevant to my work, I fail to see how it is anyone's business but my own. But if you insist on prying, I have indeed decided to live out the balance of my life as a woman." 

"Are you going to stay dressed like _that_?" Scarlet looked disturbed either way. 

"Irrelevant." 

"Are you changing your name?" 

"None of you can properly pronounce my personal name anyway, so I don't see why I should bother." 

"Going to finally be doing some surgery on _yourself_, for once? Gya ha ha!" 

"May I remind you all," Hojo spat, "Company policy prohibits sexual harassment and discrimination against civilian employees based on gender identity or expression." 

Deusericus cleared his throat. "He... uh... She's right. The nondiscrimination policy was updated three years ago to include sexual orientation and gender identity." He rifled through his satchel and actually produced the relevant document. 

"You carry that around with you? It was a joke! You can't expect me to watch Hojo growing tits and not make at least one damn joke." 

"This is a budget meeting. Is any of this relevant to the budget? Can we please get back to the budget?" Tuesti whined, to no avail. 

//// 

"Well, that board meeting went completely off the rails." Lazard dumped his satchel and an armful of papers on his desk, where Sephiroth had been sitting in for him while he was detained on the upper floors. "I mean, they tend to, but _that_..." He rolled his head, trying to pop his spine back into place. "That was something else." 

Sephiroth quirked an eyebrow. "Anything in particular?" 

"Hojo finally came out." 

"Hmm. That would do it." 

"Give me my chair, my back is killing me." Lazard flopped down in the ergonomic seat, stretching painfully. The chairs in the Shinra boardroom were straight-backed and too squishy, and every time he left a meeting, it was with a terrible backache. 

"You should head home. There's not going to be anything else coming down from on high today but gossip and harassment action threats from SRD. Maybe get some therapeutic massage." _Maybe from me_, he suggested silently, with a slow smile and quick batting of those long eyelashes. 

Lazard sighed, leaning back as far as he could without tipping over. "You always have the best ideas. Do you think you could help me carry my things downstairs? My poor, unenhanced spine, you see..." He laughed, but it really did hurt. 

Sephiroth made a little show of helping him up. As they waited for the elevator -- always a ridiculous ordeal in its own right -- Lazard decided to ask one of the questions that had been bobbing around in his mind for awhile. "So, what do you think? About Hojo." 

He rolled his eyes. "In general? Or about her gender specifically? Because those are very different answers." 

"The, uh, gender thing." 

"Well, it hasn't made her any worse." 

"It doesn't bother you? Even though he's your --" 

"Lazard, what was going to be a pleasant evening at home for you is in very real danger," Sephiroth warned him. "Would it bother _you_? If _your_ \--" 

"Fine, fine, I get it," Lazard snapped. 

The elevator chimed, finally indicating that it was coming up... From the seventeenth floor. 

"Hojo is Hojo," Sephiroth said quietly. "Perhaps she'll be slightly less of a miserable pest now; probably she won't. I've known this person my entire life, and I try to stay out of her business, a courtesy she's constitutionally incapable of extending towards me. My expectations are nonexistent, and I doubt very much there's anything she could ever do to change that." 

Lazard brushed their hands together, briefly and slightly, just enough to let Sephiroth know he was thankful for him, and sorry for prying. 

"Let's get carryout," he said lightly. The elevator had lurched its way into the low thirties before stalling again. "It's your turn to pick, my turn to treat." 

//// 

Hojo considered the nondiscrimination policy Deusericus had brandished earlier in greater detail. Gender identity, yes, fine. Sexual orientation... 

"Ah, shit," she said. She'd been so busy that it hadn't occurred to her that she was gay now, too.


End file.
